Network edge courts apps

DRIVEN BY THE opportunity to secure the role of edge networking devices in enterprise IT infrastructures, a groundswell of networking vendors is beginning to embrace Web services.

Companies including 3Com and Cisco are in the process of developing edge routing devices to embrace technologies such as deep-packet inspection in an effort to meet the emerging demands of Web-based applications.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based 3Com, which in May announced its XRN 10 Gigabit Ethernet VoIP (voice over IP) switch, is in the midst of contemplating the impact of enterprise applications on the next generation of networking equipment.

Although the company's 10/100 Ethernet-based equipment is already "application aware," Patrick Guay, vice president and general manager of 3Com's LAN infrastructure division, said the company is working to unify the code base across its product lines to ease configuration and management issues.

"Applications need to be able to signal their requests from the edge of the network," Guay said.

With 3Com currently in the process of rolling out its SuperStack 3 Switch 4400 SE, Guay said the company is hearing "noise from customers" about the need for application-aware switches.

3Com's first step on this path was to introduce field upgrade, application prioritization, and VoIP management features in the 4400.

"We are productizing a switch to recognize different communities of applications at the edge of the network, but we are not there yet," Guay said.

In addition, Guay said he thinks "more can be done" to develop edge switches capable of rerouting traffic based on application latency and service-level requirements.

San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco, for its part, has conceded the importance of Web services to the development of multitenant application architectures.

Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers used his keynote at NetWorld+Interop 2002 Las Vegas recently to highlight the need to develop a common architecture around security and applications to build out what he calls the "network virtual organization."

Chambers and other senior executives later made one of their initial public statements of support for Web services. "[Web services] will change the way you do computing," Chambers said.

Although Cisco officials assert that Web services will not fundamentally change the nature of packet flow through the network, network devices need to adopt filtering and prioritization capabilities based on XML tags, said Bob Gleichauf, director of software development for security solutions.

Cisco's vision includes XML load balancing in the LAN, and ultimately building out technologies to support "global routing of Web services," Gleichauf said.

Gleichauf also indicated that Cisco is working on building higher degrees of state into its switches to improve speed, but not divulge timeline details.

Other companies pushing a similar agenda include Sarvega Networks, DataPower Technology, and Forum Systems, all of which announced XML-aware switches this year.